To Each His Own
by KingKubano
Summary: Fed up since their arrival to our world, Sonic and the gang, having had more than enough of their share of the chaotic obsessions from crazed fans, escape to another “world” that offers much more than just a name.


Title: To Each His Own

Summary: Fed up since their arrival to our world, Sonic and the gang, having had more than enough share of the chaotic obsessions from crazed fans, escape to another "world" that offers much more than just a name.

Note: After a failing of my hard drive, this idea is the first to rebuilding my fiction arsenal. I was going to originally use this in a series of stories of my own where Sonic gets transported to earth as we know it, but I decided not to as the story wasn't compatible with what I had written. Hence, this has been deemed a standalone story. This general idea for a story has been thought of at least one hundred times but mine specifically being executed zero times. Being inspired from certain recent happenings of my own and reading a few great stories on this, it was instinctive that I throw the best fictional candidate for the position into my own execution. Reviews are welcome; flames are simply overlooked. Enjoy the story.

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To Each His Own  
By Kyle Kay

Prologue

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My life gives a redefined meaning to the phrase: "Life's a living Hell." Life itself has taken a turn for the very worst. The very way I'm viewed on this screwed planet is enough to kill a guy. These people, these humans, they know some- no, many, many important details about me, details that I wish they weren't aware of. They know what I stand for, who I socialize with. They have my age, weight, height. You name it; they've got it. Heck, they already have documented a social security number for me. There's really nowhere else I can go, nothing else I can do, not a word I can speak before someone correctly anticipates it. And my speech, they have my speech catalogued as if the things I say are catchphrases, such as, "Let's do this," "I'm the fastest thing alive," and even something as moronic as "Gotta juice and cut it loose!" Paranoia is beginning to set in. After all, this piece of land I'm living on called the United States of America is only so big. There are few completely desolate spaces I can run to where no one will find me. But even then, I'm found. In the past week, I've summed up about one hour's time that I've spent completely alone, away from both obsessed fanatics of me and the rest of the "Mobius" gang. I hate that I'm an icon to these people. It's unfortunate and undignified. If this lifestyle isn't an easy way to lead someone to suicide, I haven't a clue what is.

Life, my life in particular, has become one continuous game of hide and seek. I run, I hide, they seek, and they find. It's even worse when they think you're basking in the fun of it all. These sickly inhumane humans, they believe that I'm actually enjoying running from them. While they have most of my physical and personal information that's correctly documented, what they don't have is my mind. Even though I'm fast, I don't enjoy constant harassment. I'm not the poster boy for D.A.R.E. nor am I the guy you see cinematically drowning into the sunset. You'd think they'd use some sort of reverse psychology on me for a little while. Shadow, for example, loves to be left alone most of the time. (He is mental, as you know.) Still, the fans pounce on him in the opposite sense. With me, they believe that I love attention and would want nothing more than a million people talking to me at once. With that in mind, shouldn't that mentally tell them, using their wacky reverse psychology, to leave me alone? Apparently not. The fair weather fans of this Sonic the Hedgehog phenomenon have increased significantly over these past few weeks in Hell. They "love" me now. They "adore" me now. They "prize" me now. I don't want to be loved. I don't want to be adored. I don't want to be prized. Maybe if the hellish chaos would become more sporadic, I could "accept and conform." But that's thinking as fantastically and outrageously as I was regarded. Instead, I've accepted and conformed to that never happening. This is the way it is now. This is the way it will continue to be. Every waking moment is spent in fear of being destroyed, destroyed in a different way than I once knew. The fans, they destroy in a most horrific way. They run. They shout. They scream. They crowd you. Then, they go in for the kill. But I've learned to deal with it, as this is my life, my now utterly pitiful life. My name is Sonic the Hedgehog, "the fastest thing alive."

It's turned into a terrible thing. The United States has turned my case of coming to this world into an internationally known phenomenon and world-wide hype. Just about every single kid and most teens in this deal know that I exist. Everyone knows that I am lurking about somewhere. I could be in the state of California in one moment, and the next, I could be in Georgia. It's stereotyped; I know. And the thing is that I have absolutely no protection. You'd think this extreme popularity would give me protection perks, namely bodyguards or something like that. No dice. Part of the problem is that Tails is all for "not letting the media inside." He says that if the broadcasting people even get so much as a glimpse of either one of us, we're to be considered dead in this world. Instead, we've had to resort to switching our hideout location every so often in order to stay completely in the dark. (So much for being on the "Hero" alignment! Pun intended.) Many times we've attempted a hideout switch, we haven't been successful. The same goes for the rest of the gang. We've all stayed together, except for Shadow, believing that there's safety in numbers. While I don't agree, I still have stuck together with everyone. After watching one of the stereotyped shows about me called Sonic X, I definitely don't want to be a blow-off and desert everyone like I did as the show so portrayed. (I must add that I've been projected by an abysmal voice actor.) Nonetheless, it's still hard enough to meet up with everyone for two reasons. Firstly, the fans and stalkers have been increasing on an exponential curve. Secondly, the gang has gotten terribly cranky and ravenous since this display of mass hysteria by the humans. (I can't say that I blame the gang.) Anything more would pretty much be a bonus. It's almost impossible to keep cool in these unbearable conditions.

We'd gone through the magnified game of cat-and-mouse for two solid weeks. We all had major sleep deprivation, we were getting ill, and we were getting unhealthily wired on caffeine. (We'd acquired this coffee in an interesting way. Each of us would take turns sneaking in to this one coffee shop and take a bag…with permission, of course. Actually, we'd take coffee and the necessary condiments. We'd show it to the guy at the counter. He'd nod his head and smile at us. Then, he'd open his eyes widely, and we'd run like the wind before he'd become star-struck with us.) All of this madness had finally taken its toll on us. We weren't able to keep our eyes open any longer. Thankfully, a certain red echidna friend of ours intervened right before fate.

My cellphone rang one morning. (We'd acquired the cellphones and a bunch of pre-paid minutes cards the same way we'd gotten the coffee. It was the best way to stay in touch while we weren't together.) It was my "rival."

"Sonic?" my rival asked.

"Yes?" I acknowledged my rival.

"Are you alone?"

"For the moment, I am...Knuckles. Is something bothering you, or have you joined the Mob?"

"Sonic, our lives are living Hells. It's time to end that," he said flatly, voice raspy and sore from the chaos we'd been through.

"You have ideas?" I inquired, my own voice raspy as well.

"No, Sonic. I have a plan. Can you get to 'Arrivals' at the Miami International Airport an hour and a half from now? Remember the place, the one with the game store incident?"

"Uh, I can and do, Knux-man, but why are-"

"-Don't ask questions, Sonic. Time is of the essence. Just listen for a second," he interrupted, his voice the shrillest I'd ever heard it before.

Shrill and raspy made for an unusual sound.

"Okay, Godfather. I'm listening," I said (or, in fact, wheezed.)

"Sonic, there's hardly any time to explain. All of us want out of this insanity; you're well aware of that. So, You're either in or you're out."

He was quoting films like crazy.

"Again, I'm listening, Mr. Ocean." I replied sarcastically, absent-mindedly scratching my ear's inside, as I did in trademarked fashion of this world.

"In an hour and a half, random planes, airplanes, very good, with room for standby will be taking off from the Miami International Airport to other continents. Other continents, Sonic! International flights, out of this confining landmass. This country won't even know we're gone!" Knuckles chortled with excitement; Knuckles didn't make it a habit to chortle very much.

"Okay, I'll be there in, like, a minute," I snickered, placing my finger on the End Call button.

"No!" Knuckles shouted before I could hang up. "Don't run there! That'll give us away immediately. Think about it. If this, very well, doesn't work, they'll know from the blue flash of light that we're around. 'Mommy, mommy, see that blue light? It's Sonic the hedgehog!' We _don't_ want that. Take a bus or something and keep well-concealed. Sonic, we have to get on one of those planes," he choked, trying to get his thoughts out of his mouth in a single breath; he was unsuccessful.

"We have to?" I asked groggily, noticing how very out of the game I was.

"Sonic, stay with me, now. Don't you get it? We're escaping. It's- Shoot! I'm gone. Be there, Sonic. I don't want any of us, not…even…you," he muttered hesitantly, "to have to go through this suffering any longer. See ya."

A short click of the phone and Knuckles was gone.

Good old Knuckles with his crazy conspiracy language. His tone of voice on the phone literally gave away whatever emotion was displayed on his face. Since being here, his bossiness, stubbornness, and paranoia have risen high. It might have been his conscience constantly bugging him about his prophesized "duty." It might have been his inability to communicate with his "precious flower." Actually, it was his inability to be the stubborn loner he was born to be. I laughed. It was an unhealthy laugh that had, again, been due to the unhealthy activity. After a few minutes went by and I collected myself, the conversation of sorts with the red echidna sank into my unnourished brain. Leaving the continent? Leaving this lethally confining landmass for somewhere else? Somewhere where no one knew to look for us? Being here on this new planet for the short time I'd been made it sound just a tad too good to be true, but I was tired and desperate. I was tired and desperate enough to care not for anyone else who had been suffering on this god-forsaken world along with me. I was desperate enough to consider not the danger of everything that loomed ahead of me.

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My life is not a life. Nay, it should not even be referred to as that. My shames, sorrows, and events of misfortune are all now, and have been for a long while, exposed to a misunderstanding public. My existence has become as pathetic and meaningless as the world back home. Here I lay, desperate, tormented, and alone. This time, however, I'm alone in a new way, a way that is so empty and unreasonable, it's hard to even describe. My time away from Maria, fifty years into the past, in the original world, was as far away from her as I could possibly be. I'm disconnected in a way I never would have known about. The distance between life and death is far; the distance between life in one universe and death in another is even farther. I cannot possibly picture her voice without much labor and work. This being away has created much more than the brick wall that was a roadblock between her and me. The trip to this strange new world has gotten me encased into a minute box that keeps me away from the delusions and confusions of reality.

It seemed that way for a few days. I couldn't comprehend my existence and the existence of some others. There was nothing that made any logical sense to my handcrafted head. Only one thing rung clearly in my state of blind confusion: death. Ah, never once had death seemed pleasured; never once had it seemed so sweet. It was a defining moment. Everything had caught up to me. My nearly sixty cruel and unusual years of a punishment far worse than death itself had consumed my heart with a suicidal outlook from the inside out. The realization that I wasn't needed, the realization that I was not a natural state in a world of a natural nature, the realization that reality didn't care if I was neither alive nor dead awakened violently in me. The next ten minutes a fateful day but a few weeks ago reigned down in ill recention.

"_If life doesn't need me," I thought to myself in a somewhat unwilling state of mind, "I most certainly don't need life." _

_And it was at that moment that time froze. Everything around me, my world, my dreams, my thoughts, my mind, came to a completely stop. I clenched a dull metal trigger that merely asked me what it needed to do. Instead of answering it, I asked it many times myself. It didn't answer me, but, somehow, it told me the answer. It told me my answer._

"_Shadow, think about what you're doing!" yelled a familiar voice in anguish._

_I knew full well who was talking. I didn't care. No, I didn't want to care. I tried hard not to care and focused on the task at hand. Because I had heard that same high-pitched whine coming from my arch-rival's mouth, I didn't care. But he changed suddenly._

_And in a newly found tone, he whispered, "Shadow, your life is in your hands. The object you're holding in your right hand is what's gonna dictate the rest of your life. 'Those who live by the sword, in turn, die by the sword.' I can't tell you what to do with your life, Shadow. Only you can. Only you can tell you what you want to do. But you have to decided now, Shad'. You can't live this life of second thoughts 24/7. No one can. So, decided, Shadow. Decide where you're going to go. I'm not going to stop you."_

_At that moment, I blinked. I blinked a particular blink. I heard many, many voices in my head, every one of them had I heard at some point in my life. It kept on and on for fifteen of the longest seconds in my entire existence. It was literally my very life verbally being played like a CD player. The final voice I heard was not the one I was expecting. As I think about it now, I was expecting this:_

Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.

_What I heard was this:_

So, decided, Shadow. Decide where you're going to go.

And I decided. With a surge of powerful energy, a fierce clench of my two fists, and a reverberated rattle of metal hitting the solid ground, I had decided. Never before in my life had I decided something more important than that. As I listened to last ring of my decision, my mind opened. It opened in such a way that it never had before. I didn't hear the name "Maria" being chanted like a skipping record, nor did I hear a voice of hate and evil harshly barking at me on what diabolical deed to do next. I heard nothing at all.

My name is Shadow the Hedgehog, still the Ultimate Life-form.

_I didn't immediately throw a congratulatory party for myself after my crazed, mental mind freed itself of most of its disdain with a can opener. I didn't smile or laugh after that life/death scenario. _

_But I did say this, "She's gone and I don't care."_

_Sonic had only glared at me oddly after saying that, but all was worked out. Sonic walked away with the gun in hand neutrally positioned. He was obviously discarding it. I hadn't seen him or anyone else since then._

I'd like to say that after that experience, life had changed for the better. Nay, it did not.

Life itself has become a lethal and complex system of navigating an underground railroad of sorts. Since the untimely arrival to this new world, existence has been disturbed in a way that is truly disturbing and unfashionable. The recent news of our arrival has composed a blithering scale of what the media is calling "Sonic Fanatics." In this strange universe that is parallel to our own, we are a creative idea out of the creative mind of a Japanese man. This idea has created video games, television shows, merchandising of all sorts. I am one of the main characters in their idea of a series. My life story has basically been told out (to an extent) in their depictions of what they once regarded as fantasy.

It's an unnerving piece of information, thinking about the fact that we have been thought up in this world, an idea, a fantastical icon, a product of imagination. When everyone finds that fantasy is closer than they think, rather than being established and firm in a work only created by something supreme above, they lose all traces of sanity, flailing their arms and heads in the air, screaming on the top of their lungs, having gone mad. It's unnerving to think that you have gone from a life of personal Hell and contempt and have passed onto another where you are witnessing Hell and contempt. The humans who reside here, they regard me as a sorry soul, desperately trying to fill the gap that they think exists in my heart. These humans, when there are some that love me, there are others that hate me. They feel they must resort to brute strength to try to "destroy" me. (At least, this is only so much I've heard about me. I have yet to witness the hatred toward me.) I really haven't a care for their opinions on me, though. They hate me because they think I hate them. For me, it's vice-versa. I hate them because they hate me. To try to keep far from both of these extremists is nearly an impossibility. It's an unnerving impossibility.

And when I received an unexpected call from Knuckles, the tension of the new life weakened, while strengthening simultaneously.

"Hello?" I answered when my cellphone had rung. (I had acquired a cellphone of my own in a way similar to the way Sonic and his friends had done so. One of the differences in the way I had done so was that I had acquired mine by myself.)

"Shadow! Someone get me a blanket a bucket of ice; I must be dreaming. You actually picked up?" he shrieked in semi-dramatic astonishment.

"Yes, I did," I replied, having trouble reading the emotion in his voice. I wasn't exactly sure how Knuckles had gotten my number.

"Shadow, why the hell did you pick up?" Knuckles shouted, almost speechless.

"Because...that's what the cellphone's for," I said as I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, but you were always- And they said to call- Oh, never mind. Why do I bother? Look, while you're at a substantial mentality, listen to me for a sec."

"I'm listening."

"This continent, it's crazy. You don't me to tell you that," he said, obviously telling me anyway.

"Yes, it is, indeed."

"Listen, Shad, we're gonna get out of here. All of us are: you, me, Amy, Sonic, Tails. The fan madness is through the roof. The longer we stay here, the longer we risk a well-lived life. Whether you're in a fit of vengeance and suicide, you are coming," Knuckles explained, his voice thick and worked-up.

"You have a proposal of some kind, I'm assuming?" I inquired with my phone held tightly against my ear.

"In about an hour or so, a few flights are leaving the country, no, the continent. If we can somehow sneak ourselves onto one of those planes without paying for tickets and without getting noticed by basically anyone, we'd be home free. No one would even know that we're gone. And let me tell you Shadow, you are coming whether you like it or not. The gang's decided that they aren't leaving without you, and we _are _leaving. Do you get what I'm saying to- Say, Shadow, are you...all right or whatever?"

"Not when I'm talking to you," I hollered. I never had liked the echidna.

"God, Shadow. Ah, forget it. Just get to the Miami airport somehow within the next hour. Don't do anything that would get you noticed, nothing that you would be expected to do in this world. Disguise yourself. Do anything, but if they even so much as get a hint that you're outta' here, they'll skin you alive. I'm on my way already. I gotta run. Hope to see you there. No, I _will _see you there Shadow. It's my head if you aren't there. I will physically make your life miserable if you-"

I hung up the cellphone with a loud crash between the two halves of the flip-phone.

These past primitive weeks of living in the shadows, so to speak, I've still been overcome by hopelessly devoted fans along with Sonic and the others a few times. It's been rough getting out of the messes, and I've barely survived. To make matters worse, upon coming to this world, virtually all of my ability to communicate with the Chaos Emeralds has been relinquished. Thus, I am unable to use any form of Chaotic power. Because I was created to be in constant connection with the powerful gems, much of my strength has been relinquished as well. Though, I have a faint feeling that this might be the reason that I'm not in angst about Maria, not seeking a bloodthirsty vengeance towards anyone. The scales are equally hard to manipulate. If only I had no artificial will to avenge Maria while keeping my physical abilities premium. But that is only a dream, or as the humans here like to say, a fantasy. Everything besides what I am and what I have with me is all just an idea from minds of many. Indeed, just a fantasy.


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